Errand

This afternoon I walked out of the OB/GYN’s office into a light drizzle, tears swelling in my throat.  It was a quick errand – just drop off some books I borrowed last year – but the intersection of too many sights, sounds, memories, and emotions came together there.  I looked down the hall and saw a woman in her third trimester being weighed on a scale.  I remembered the face of every person behind the desk, although I’m sure they don’t remember mine.  The art on the walls, the magazines on the tables, the lighting and the furniture – all evoked the memories of those first visits now 30 months ago.

I flipped through the stack of index cards in the lending library, looking for the one where I had written the titles of the books I borrowed, and found it at the bottom.  My name, the date – 12/17/07 – the titles.  I checked them off and wrote “returned 6/29/09.”  I wonder if anyone will look at those dates and ask why I had the books on pregancy out for such a long time (I just never got around to taking them back after V. was born). 

It was looking at my name in my handwriting that tipped the emotional scale for me; the ghostly presence of the person I was then – pregnant, worried – and the person I was before V. was conceived – so very sad.  There’s something about the baby seat in the back of the car now that, even as I parked in that all too familiar parking lot today, evokes emotions I can’t begin to untangle and name. 

I know I’m feeling sad that I’m not pregnant right this minute.  And I feel a deep well of compassion for that grieving woman I was 2 years ago.  And love and gratefulness for V.  And thankfulness to the NP and doctors who wrote my clomid prescriptions, wanded my vag, monitored my baby, and delivered her by cesaerean.  And I want more.  I want another one.  I wish I was young enough to have three more. 

Another day in the life.